Magazine

A sleep-deprived dad staring at a spreadsheet of baby boy names on his laptop

Decoding baby names for boys: A dad's naming algorithm

Line 74 of my Google Sheet was flashing neon green. I'd written a custom script to highlight any moniker with a standard deviation of less than 5% in popularity over the last decade, filtering out anything that spiked due to...

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A stressed pregnant mom looking at baby name lists on a clipboard.

The Absolute Messy Truth About Finding Unique Baby Names in 2024

I was thirty-two weeks pregnant, sitting at the nurse station at Northwestern Memorial, staring blankly at a patient chart. The poor kid had a name with five consecutive consonants and a silent q. My shift was ending, my ankles looked...

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Confused dad looking at a spreadsheet of baby names while holding a teething infant in Portland.

How The AGT Winner Jessica Sanchez Baby Name Wrecked My Math

Don't, under any circumstances, try to write a Python script that scrapes the Social Security Administration database to find a moniker with a mathematically perfect syllable-to-vowel ratio. This is a terrible way to name a human. I know this because...

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A stressed mom looking at a baby name book on her kitchen counter.

How to Pick a Girl Baby Name When Everyone Has an Opinion

I was thirty-two weeks pregnant with my second, sweating through my maternity leggings at a baby shower I didn't even want to have, staring at a plate of lukewarm spinach dip while three different women cornered me about names. My...

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